Melbourne chair Bart Campbell has called on fans to stop viewing the Storm through the prism of the 2010 salary cap scandal and start giving the club the credit they deserve for one of the greatest periods of sustained excellence in the game’s history.
Campbell, who was inspired to buy a stake in the Storm after watching the way they emerged from the devastation wreaked on the club seven years ago, believes the people within the organisation are slowly beginning to get the kudos they deserve for the work they have done since the cap scandal.
However, he insists the rapid-fire way people have embraced Parramatta after last year’s indiscretion highlights the way in which the Storm have been unfairly maligned since 2010.
“The reason I got involved with this club in 2013 was what this place did in 2010,” Campbell said.
“In 2010, for this club to lose players mid-season, to play without points, and to go through a season where they had enough pride in their work and profession to win the same number of games that they won in 2012 when they won the competition, I find staggering.
“It blew me away. Playing for no points is pretty demotivating — not when you’re doing it for six weeks at the back end of the season, it was largely for the whole season.
“It was huge turmoil. The press and the issues around it dragged on and on and on. I find it ironic that we talk about Parramatta today as this reborn club from a salary cap scandal and I mean that with no disrespect to Parramatta. The current administration have done a first-class job.
“Yet eight years on from when the Melbourne Storm were caught rorting the cap, we talk about the Melbourne Storm as salary cap cheaters.
“It is madness, so out of touch. The Melbourne Storm haven’t cheated the salary cap since 2009 and we still focus on it. It is deeply unfair to what the people who work at the club do.
“It is a lazy way of putting the Melbourne Storm success into a pocket that is out of date. The club has continued to be successful while being compliant with the cap.
“What happened in 2007 and 2009 were wrong. Let’s be clear about that. But it is ancient history. We’re talking about Parramatta as a reborn organisation eight months after their transgressions.
“We’re talking about eight years for the Melbourne Storm. I think we’re slowly coming out the other end of it but it is torturous. It is a convenient label that doesn’t match up to reality.”
Campbell was the face of the consortium that bought the Storm from News Limited five years ago and he was at the forefront of a push to have the clubs given greater financial resources as part of the new funding arrangement.
The Storm are expected to break even at worst under the new funding deal, a remarkable achievement in itself given the club has bled cash for most of its existence.
Asked whether he was in the club for the long haul, Campbell said: “There are no plans to change. I really enjoy it. I am passionate about it.
“Will my role change over time? It may do because it is incredibly time consuming.
“So it might be at some point in time for me to be a director and let someone else be chairman. But I love the club, I love the people in it.
“I love the culture of the organisation.”
He revealed the Storm have made significant strides off the field under a management team headed by chief executive Dave Donaghy and chief commercial officer Ben Dunn.
“We will be a break-even proposition (under the new funding arrangement),” Campbell said.
“It is certainly an improvement from when we took over.
“Going back to the people who work in this business, when we came in we knew we had a world-class football department and what we tried to do was mirror those capabilities in the non-football business.
“If you look at the business, we are performing really strongly in a whole raft of metrics. It is the No 1 game-day experience in the NRL. We have the biggest ticketed membership in the NRL.
“There are so many good things that are happening in the business. The question is what does this business want to be known for? I think at its very heart it is a high-performance business and a fan engagement business.
“The money is nice and if that was really important we would focus on building the other revenue streams we have away from the club. The board thinks the right thing to do is to invest in the core business, grow capabilities and provide a better service to our fans and members.”
